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all over the map
1. Spread out or scattered over a great distance. I love how people from all over the map make their way to this bar for a drink.
2. In or having a great number and variety. Public opinion is all over the map for the governor, so it's hard to know how she'll do in the next election.
3. Unorganized or scattered in thinking, communication, or planning. I tried to get a sense of John's plan for the project, but he seems all over the map with it.
the map is not the territory
A person or thing is completely separate from the judgments or perceptions that people place upon it. The phrase was coined by US semanticist Alfred Korzybski. I know you dislike Ed because of how he acted in that meeting, but you don't actually know him. Just keep in mind that the map is not the territory, OK?
map something out
to plot something out carefully, usually on paper. I have a good plan. I will map it out for you. I will map out the plan for you.
put something on the map
Fig. to make some place famous or popular. The good food you serve here will really put this place on the map. Nothing like a little scandal to put an otherwise sleepy town on the map.
fall off the map
also drop off the map to stop being known or considered That team played in the World Series for three or four years in a row, but then they dropped off the map.
map out something
also map something out to decide in detail how something will be done She is mapping out lesson plans for teachers who work with below-average readers. When we mapped it out before we began this project, we thought we would be finished by now.
Etymology: based on the literal meaning of map out (to use a map to plan a trip)
put something on the map
to make something famous The Macintosh operating system put Apple computers on the map.
wipe somewhere off the map
to cause a place to stop existing The flood of 1965 almost wiped the town off the map.
[blow/bomb/wipe etc.] something/swh off the map
to destroy something completely, especially with bombs At least eight Spanish warships were blown off the map.
put swh/something/somebody on the map
to make a place, thing, or person famous The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909 put Seattle on the map. If Newcastle United win the championship it will really put them back on the map as far as European football is concerned.
put on the map
Make famous, publicize, as in The incident got on the national news and put our community on the map. This expression, alluding to a locality that formerly was too small to put on a map, dates from the early 1900s.
wipe off the map
Also, wipe off the face of the earth. Eliminate completely, as in Some day we hope to wipe malaria off the map. This idiom uses wipe in the sense of "obliterate," and map and face of the earth in the sense of "everywhere."
map out
v.1. To plan something explicitly: Let's map out a way to accomplish this project. We mapped the trip out so we wouldn't get lost.
2. To incorporate or lay out some set of things into an explicit map, plan, or order: I've mapped out the beginning and end of each project on this timeline. The houses on these city blocks have been mapped out for demolition.
map
1. n. one’s face. With a map like that, she could really go somewhere.
2. n. sheet music. (see also
chart.)
I left the map at home. Can I look at yours? throw a map
tv. to empty one’s stomach; to vomit. Somebody threw a map on the sidewalk.
all over the map
1. In, from, or to a variety of places; ubiquitously.
2. Showing great variety; varied or diverse: "Literary nonfiction is all over the map and has been for three hundred years" (William Zinsser).
put on the map
To make well-known, prominent, or famous.
wipe off the map
To destroy completely; annihilate.